David Sanger in the New York Times writes about the possibility that our banking system is so broken that we may need to nationalize the banks. And in the process, he almost accidentally points out one of the grand ironies of our equally broken political discourse:

Nationalization could pull the banks out of that dive, at least temporarily, as the government injected capital, hired new managers and ordered a restart to lending. But some Republicans who bit their tongues when President George W. Bush ordered huge interventions in the market would charge that Mr. Obama was steering America toward socialism.

Nationalization, said Charles Geisst, a financial historian at Manhattan College "is just not a term in the American vocabulary."

"We think of it," he continued, "as something foreigners do to us, not something we do."

As an unrepentant capitalist with a masters’ degree in business whose ideas on economics really aren’t all that far from those of my father, a Rockafeller Republican in the sixties, I am laughing this morning. Because if I had a nickel for every time someone referred to me as a "far left extremist" or a "liberal loon," my dogs would be fixed for poodle pate for life.

graphic by twolf

The point is, our "elites" — those who, as Jay Rosen notes, determine the "sphere of legitimate controversy," place the views of people like me on the very edge (if we’re considered within the sphere at all, and frequently we aren’t). And everything to the "left" of that is considered in the "sphere of deviance," which means that an enormous swath of ideas and human history, and most certainly "socialism," has been purged from realm of legitimate contemplation:

Anyone whose views lie within the sphere of deviance—as defined by journalists—will experience the press as an opponent in the struggle for recognition. If you don’t think separation of church and state is such a good idea; if you do think a single payer system is the way to go; if you dissent from the “lockstep behavior of both major American political parties when it comes to Israel” (Glenn Greenwald) chances are you will never find your views reflected in the news. It’s not that there’s a one-sided debate; there’s no debate.

Which brings us to Bill Kristol’s last column, printed today in the selfsame pages of the New York Times, to which I say there aren’t enough pies in the world for an appropriate response:

Conservatives have been right more often than not — and more often than liberals — about most of the important issues of the day: about Communism and jihadism, crime and welfare, education and the family. Conservative policies have on the whole worked — insofar as any set of policies can be said to “work” in the real world. Conservatives of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush years have a fair amount to be proud of.

He then goes on to do what all conservatives do when they don’t know where to go — fondle Reagan’s corpse. This is irrational. No thinking person could look at our current maladies and not see their roots in Reagan’s contempt for government and unchecked fetish for deregulation. But as Attaturk notes, this is the same William Kristol, son of Irving Kristol, who yesterday told the son of Mike Wallace that "Democrats are the party of hereditary power." These people have been allowed to say virtually anything, no matter how stupid and obviously wrong, completely unchecked and without consequence for decades. They have demonized the word "liberal" and all it stands for, despite the fact that on the major issues of the day (the economy, healthcare, the war) the public firmly cast their ballots for the "liberal" position in November.

So what does this mean? Well, events have compelled us to consider a course of action that is outside the realm of acceptable debate. Even those Pete Peterson jokers, whose obsessive desire to privatize social security make you want to roll your eyes and shout "get a room," acknowledge that “the case for full nationalization is far stronger now than it was a few months ago." It’s not a new idea — people like Dean Baker, Ian Welsh and a host of others have been saying it for a while.

But as Krugman notes, we will probably first have a host of expensive, unsuccessful "new voodoo" schemes because "Washington remains deathly afraid of the N-word."

Thanks to the collective wankery of those who dictate what is and isn’t fit for discussion, we now have no way to reasonably contemplate a measure that could prevent our further economic slide. We’ll probably throw a bunch of money at things that won’t work before reality forces us to accept a course of action we can’t talk about.

Kristol may be gone from the pages of the Times, but his legacy of stupid will live on at — wait for it — the Washington Post. He will remain as one of the high priests of our Orwellian discourse, he will continue to be celebrated and validated as an elite thinker, and the cognitive dissonance between what we’re allowed to think and what we’re going to have to do will continue unabated.

93 Responses
to “Pssst, Let’s Nationalize The Banks. We Just Won’t Talk About It.”

This hits at the core of what’s wrong with the American experiment at the moment. If the general electorate understood these issues better, they would never vote in a modern-day Repub ever again.

BigMedia exists to continue these false narratives so that the public will keep voting against their own interests. This is why I think media reform, or perhaps a better term would be replacement, should be our utmost concern right now. Imagine this post being considered “conventional wisdom.”

We could do this right now if enough people would cancel subscriptions and cable/dish, and apply that same money to New Media outlets like FDL. If this doesn’t happen, we’ll be right back where we are today in the next decade or two, because BigMedia will provide the cover for Repub failures (yes I know, that’s redundant.) They’ve already started in earnest to pretend that everything was just dandy with the policies of the last 30 years which led to this mess we’re trying to clean up. It’s up to us to change our habits and make this happen immediately.

Half measures will not be enough. If Obama lets these fools determine what is acceptable, he will be lose. Our nation will not recover. He needs to remind them who won the election, and to tell them to go straight to hell.

As one of the first here, if not the first to back nationalization, I look with considerable bemusement at how the MSM has “discovered” the concept. But what is important is not what nationalization is called, it is that it is done.

Almost all of the major problems of the meltdown, distressed homeowners, frozen credit, insolvent banks, and financial institutions too big to fail run through banks and nationalization would be the most direct, effective, and cheapest means to fixing these.

In this conservatives like Kristol or Boehner and McCain are not important, Obama and his economic team of Summers, Geithner, and Rubin are and they continue to militate against nationalization. This not only puts at risk any recovery it insures that such a recovery will be far more expensive, contingent, and long in coming.

Until this New Media started to really get legs, I was really thinking it was going to require a complete meltdown and potentially violent revolution. Thankfully, we were able to start organizing online, which helped organize in the trenches as well, and I started to think we could do it this way, and we’ve had some success with this, so I’s gots Hope!

I do worry though that things have sort of plateau-ed in the New Media in terms of the audience numbers, but don’t really know this for a fact. I’m all about increasing “the ratings” around here significantly.

Funny to think back to the first time I checked our MichaelMoore.com (not sure when…maybe 2001, 2002?), and literally was paranoid that I was then I some sort of watchlist and would start getting harrassed. That feeling lasted for quite a while. (Yes, I know that still may be true, but at least there’s some safety in numbers now).

“Collective wankery” is right, good one. I am also afraid that we will have to crash hard, really hard, before we admit to ourselves as a nation that the ship of state is no longer navigable, before basic assumptions can be discussed.

I had a dream last night that I was talking to emptywheel (whom I’ve never actually spoken to or met) and was thanking her for providing me with coherent, factal information and historically accurate timelines… I only recalled this dream snippet after reading Jane’s post this morning.

Wanking is fantasizing, not the real Mccoy. In personal life, magical thinking is sustainable only in isolation or in a collective agreement that the ideas are the real thing and not subject to rational analysis. This I call “The Church of the Erroneous Assumption,” and like any bible-thumper group, the rules are specific, not interpretable, and you’ll be kicked out if you deviate.

Of course,’they’ are not completely opposed to nationalizing, that is, as long as it is limited to their losses and toxic assets.
This they are now preparing to do by creating a “bad bank.” Look for it soon at a cost of approximatly $2 trillion.

They have demonized the word “liberal” and all it stands for, despite the fact that on the major issues of the day (the economy, healthcare, the war) the public firmly cast their ballots for the “liberal” position in November.

Too damn bad they weren’t given a chance to elect a liberal as president.

Not really knowing a whole lot about economics, I’ve been wondering recently how much of this could’ve been prevented if Clinton would not have repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. It seemed like a horrendous idea at the time, and I know some are claiming this is the single biggest reason there’s a worldwide collapse.

Essentially, the repeal allowed for massive conglomeration in banking. Private Conglomeration is pretty much bad in every industry, and in banking it seemed especially problematic. No private business should ever be too big to fail. If Clinton would’ve refused to sign the repeal, would we still in the position we’re in right now financially, or would it have just delayed this for a while? If the Glass-Steagall Act was still around, would it have saved this economy?

Great Article, Jane. Watching the multiple clips of the Right Wing Nuts spew there non-sensical B.S. leads me to believe you have nailed it.

If I hear a Boehner or a McCain claim the stimulus plan will not work because it does not have enough tax cuts, my head is going to explode. And not one “journalist” who was allowing these statements to be made, even questioned them. No one in the MSM ever points out that it was the Right Wings, tax cuts, de-regulation, free-market rules mantra that led us to this current crisis. What do they teach in journalism class these days? Total wankery and ass-kissery?

Agree about the need for a new broadcast news “network” The current network news organizations cannot and will not be reformed. They have been compromised and are far to complicit in maintaining a corrupt and dysfunctional status quo. Air America is a start along with progressive blogs but most Americans still get their information from the TV. Let the people hear the voices and see the faces of Jane, Christy, Marcy, Sirota, Moyers, Vidal, Vandenheuvel, Greenwald, et al on a daily basis. America has had enough of the gasbags on the corporate media.

Well, we’ve ended up with a MSM that works just fine if what’s important is promoting the “Permanent Republican Majority” but if what’s important is having an informed electorate so as to insure wise choices when it comes to leaders, then the MSM is worse than useless.

This is a singularly important facet of what I have been describing as making profits by drilling holes in our boat.

We’ve successfully brain-washed half of the electorate and now “can’t do a thing with it”.

The Right is stuck with an electorate that thinks just the way they want them to think, but that thinking is now an encumbrance and is counter to what must be done.

Dealing with their own voters is going to require either a startling turn-about truthfulness on the part of the GOP, or a continuing of inept gymnastics.

Conservative leaders – John Thain: Thain, a top John McCain backer who was tipped as a candidate for a White House post had the Arizona senator won the presidency — has amassed quite a record in his short time at Merrill. Lavish personal spending, absentee leadership, bonuses for billions in losses — http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..oments.php

Conservatives as visionaries – The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America. http://www.cnbc.com/id/27239479/ (thanks to DailyKos for this link)

Conservatives Free Market Economics: Can the UK Afford To Rescue the Banks?

* The UK financial sector is in collapse. Rather than let the banks fail, the government is risking it all in one giant high-stakes gamble to prop up the system. It is really a no-win situation, however: Even if the bet pays off, the best the economy can expect is a slow grind-down. If the bet doesn’t pay off, the UK faces national bankruptcy. The fate of Britain’s whole economy may hang on this gamble (Trumpet) [today from Noriel Roubini]

The US Taxpayer had NO VESTED INTEREST in saving Merrill Lynch, but through the back door (Bank of America at the behest of Goldman Operative, Paulson), we ultimately did. Merrill’s shareholder received something like $21 a share at the time, and now that the truth of their disastrous balance sheet (along with that of Countrywide) has destroyed the solvency of B of A, it is left to you and I to replace the capital that Paulson previously insisted go to Merrill’s shareholders (purportedly for the good of the country).

He fails to mention that we are already in an actual Depression [if we were afforded access to the Real Numbers of unemployed - “frustrated job seekers no longer counted on the unemployment roles and under-employed (those who’ve been forced to accept lower pay or less hours), you would know that upwards of 20% of your fellow countrymen are in need of real jobs]. Just as the government waited a year to admit we had already been in a recession for AT LEAST that long, – don’t look for them to use the word “depression” to tell you what your neighbors, friends and relatives already know.

We may not like it, but MSM may represent collective thinking more than we care to admit. It is why Marx’s prediction that capitalist countries would first embrace communism didn’t happen. Proletarians want to become capitalists or worse, they want the dream of becoming capitalists although the odds are about as long as their winnning Powerball.

Capitalism is a mental disorder. It assumes some of us are better and proceeds to distinguish one from another by accumulated wealth. This need to be perceived as “better” is powerful. Those of higher rank sometimes kill those who question their quality. Others, and we see it more and more today, kill themselves if they lose their money.

We are alike because we all die and the things we do in this life don’t matter much. Even if we manage to get our name carved on a building, the building goes eventually. We cling to hierarchy because we respond to negative perceptions of the human animal. Religion not only teaches subservience, it teaches us we are insignificant. It’s that insignificance some try to get around by “succeeding”.

Maybe the way to start is to buy time on the existing MSM networks. There are these time slots where they sell pinus extension pills, diets etc. There are time slots weekend mornings. There are a lot of good films out there getting them exposure is the key.

What do they teach in journalism class these days? Total wankery and ass-kissery?

Journo Schools are not about teaching people how to actually be a good reporter. I’ve known some reporters and followed the news media for most of my life. The very best reporters seem to have majored in just about any field other than Journalism. Journalism does NOT teach critical thinking or how to do a follow-up. It appears to teach how to perpetuate the status quo.

Sad, but brilliant post Jane. That pretty much sums it up. How many trillions of dollars will we have to waste before we can finally start discussing taboo subjects like nationalization or even single-payer healthcare?

I heard Rep. Boner on NPR this morning suddenly showing some kind of concern for running up deficits that our children and grandchildren will be saddled with.

Apparently it’s okay as long as a Republican president is running up record deficits to fight an illegal war that some billionaires get even richer off of, but it’s not okay when a Democratic president is trying to save our economy.

It’s CRAP like that that should be considered the ‘Sphere of Deviance’ but instead all the sensible ideas get banished there to be ignored while people saying we need to do more of the stupid $h1t that got us into this mess get all the press.

While much of Obama’s actions are not my cup of Long Island Iced tea, I think he actively trying to pick away at these voters you describe, and he’s having quite a bit of success with it so far…obviously.

I hope he realizes, and given what he’s accomplished already he probably does, that their support is very precarious at the moment, and that BigMedia is doing everything they can to bring them back into the Repub side of things. He’s gonna havta work hard at keeping them, and a lot of direct addresses to the public would help in this regard.

Repubs don’t think about sustainability, either in the environment or in economics, so they don’t really care if things will collapse eventually. Get rich quick schemes. I think I first saw this here at FDL, but the GOP really does stand for: “Got Ours, Piss-off”

So our next money collection should be to purchase a MSM network and start fighting back!

I’ve been suggesting this for several years now. If we could put the fundraising machine of an Obama campaign into this effort we could have a Peoples News Network on the air pretty quickly.

But then we’d probably have to raise money for the Peoples Cable Company and Peoples Satellite Company to make the news channel available to anyone, because I imagine Corporate America wouldn’t be to cooperative in getting genuine news out to We The People.

Firstly, media exists for one thing: profit. Learn it. Know it. It started with radio, to sell soap and stuff and evolved from there.
Yes, online communities are an alternative way to get news and allows the viewers/readers to come together to share information from a variety of sources and to discuss.
Secondly, I’m another one who isn’t afraid of nationalization. Works for other social services doesn’t it?
Socialism has failed in the past. Democracy seems to be not working out so well in the present. Why not have a combination? A blending, if you will. Cherry picking they type of government oversight that works for different policies. Why not?
And, no, I have not been sipping Petrocelli’s morning martinis.

Hey, the MSM is going to have a difficult time keeping up with Obama’s media team. YouTube weekly messages which do not require the MSM, and posting of notes and daily meetings of all visitors–especially lobbyists…All of this will be great for the blogs and individuals and bad for the MSM.

With the economy the way it is, this is also a good time to start considering boycotts of products advertised around certain MSM shows that lean to one side and do not reflect balanced reporting.

I’m unequal to the task but I’ve been thinking for a while that someone needs to write about Durkheim’s Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The idea that “thrift” is a virtue, that wealth is a sign of divine approbation and that taxation is a heretical effort on the part of governments to defy God’s will, are the inherited underpinnings of our obeisance to the “free market.”

No matter what kind of rationalization they try to wrap around it, the obsessive quest for slashing the capital gains tax or gutting Social Security is the function of a moral imperative, not a pragmatic one.

Socialize those services that the free market & profit motive work against the public good. Ex. fire/police service, education, health care, environment/public lands, and yes, access to capital or banking.

If I’m not mistaking the US already has a national banking system ,it’s called the Federal Reserve.
The conservatives have been railing against socialism for ever.
And speaking of St Ronnie ,he used to make propaganda newsreels nothing like spreading the truth around !

I don’t think capitalism necessarily means feeling “better” than others. It’s been hijacked by the terrorist Repubs and BigMedia mavens so that most think that’s what capitalism means, but I think we can redefine it. Compassionate capitalism is possible, and I think could be the best way to organize millions/billions of people living together. But yes, we are currently a long from that point.

Here’s an example of what I’d like to see on a mass scale, and it’s already working extremely well with Billions in revenue and surviving the economic collapse quite well…The Mondragon Cooperative in Spain.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragón_Cooperative_Corporation

The nationalization of banks is a global phenomenon, and it’s NOT BY ACCIDENT. It fits the New World Order’s agenda for a one world currency and authoritarian control.

It starts like this (actually happening today):

Once US banks stopped lending, many US-based airlines looked to European banks to finance the purchase or lease of aircraft. Now (today), since being nationalized, some European banks are demanding that these customers purchase or lease ONLY Airbus aircraft, or else the bank will not advance the funds previously contracted for.

“Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering high morale and community of purpose. The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao’s leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history.”

—David Rockefeller, statement about Mao Tse-tung in The New York Times, August 10, 1973

re nationaliztion – if you weren’t the very first, you were the first to be making a consistent argument and trying to convince the rest of us. i can’t remember the number of times that’s happened here (see oil speculation). but you, like all good dirty fucking hippies, operate in the sphere of deviance. and imo that helps make it ok for ian and jane, who have one foot in the sphere of legitimate controversy, to openly discuss.

We’ve already nationalized to some extent, but have done so in such an incompetent way that we get none of the benefits of nationization, but we do get all the attendent harms.

I personally feel that Ian is right regarding nationalization. The only way to restart lending is to own the banks and force it, responsibly.

finally I don’t think it would be required to nationalize the system, but rather just a relatively few of the large banks that are currently on life-support. Take them over, make the funds available through them at reasonable market rate.

yug…. McCain on my TeeVee….. he didn’t use enough denture cream because he is whistling when speaking today……. I don’t care if McCain or any other Repug doesn’t like the stimulus bill…….F*K the Republicans….. write the bill to do the best for America and if they vote against it……. let them pay for it in 2010…

If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who. Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle (1963)

re: Durkheim, also probably worthwhile dusting-off Marcel Mauss’ The Gift, with an eye towards what the Durkheim school of thought might have to say about political campaign contributions. Any hunter-gatherer can tell you that gifts aren’t free. They’ve got all these strings and obligations attached…

Jane, you’re my hero! I hope you’ll take a moment to appreciate how far you’ve come and what a great thing you’ve done in starting FDL. Your posts are ever more pithy, insightful and funny (just one: I really liked the idea of challenging Reid to a poker game during the Burris flap) and your influence is growing in the MSM and political class (meeting with freshmen Senators!). I hope it isn’t long before you’re in the inner sphere. Bravo!

I wrote on this in item 87 of my scandals list which was my grab bag entry for chronicling our economic crisis. With some editing here are what I consider to be the foundational decisions for the housing crisis and meltdown.

1) the 2004 elimination of the reserve rule which let investment banks engage in unlimited leveraging without keeping minimal reserves to cover potential losses.
2) the 2003 ban by the Office of the Comptroller of Currency on the pursuit of mortgage writers for predatory lending by state attorney generals.
3) the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act which included not only the “Enron loophole” but deregulation of derivatives markets.
4) the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which repealed the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act which placed a wall between regular banks and insurance companies on one side and investment banks on the other.

Glass-Steagall would have made more difficult the morphing of superbanks like Citi. It would also likely have kept AIG from selling the CDSs which burned it (and taxpayers) so badly.

And that is the intersection point of me and my father. Since we can’t publicly acknowledge we’ve been governed by a crime syndicate without being dismissed as “extremists,” huge chunks of reality are simply not available for discussion.

I can’t agree with this. The history of capitalism has been one of boom and bust, more recently updated to bubble and burst. This is a very irrational process. It is why regulation of it was so important to prevent its natural excessess in both directions.

I would also look at our economy and ask has capitalism given us dependable healthcare, jobs, retirements, and education. And if not, why not?

haven’t read any durkheim, but that fits with my experience with protestant fundamentalism. so many of the moral imperatives are unexamined and covered instead with some bogus and unrelated claim of biblical sourcing that i find it hard to unpack.

The one we have hear seems to be more interested in honing the images (i.e. “professionalizing”) the images of students. How to “look right” for the camera, voice works, adding those “power words” into the broadcast, making sure that you can encapsulate a complex argument into a one minute set of talking points (usually provided by one or the other press officers). Oh, and how to get “access”. They al;so devote a large commitment to “technology” training and how to “spice up” imageIt’s treating issues as if they only had two sides, no investigation into the validity of the points made by the proponents, no analysis about what it might mean for other groups, etc.

Oh, there are “Soros” out there doing just that. The money is supporting the creation of new media outlets while supporting new voices. Some of the support is direct, some is indirect, but it’s coming. (They could use more, won’t deny that.)

I think it’s important to realize that while we rail at mainstream traditional media, they are dying — and so is there audience. What’s the average age of the people who actually buy print newspapers regularly? What’s the average age of the people who obtain most of their news from broadcast television? from cable news networks? These people are aging and dying off as are the media they’ve used most frequently.

What’s important is not only to change the tone of the media the older portion of the population consumes, but to build better, more dynamic, diverse, responsive and progressive media that fills the needs of the younger consumers so that they cannot be co-opted as their elders were.

I find it hard to unpack too. The best I can do when someone starts sourcing to make an argument is to point to the fact that there are certain scriptures which completely contradict other passages.
I was raised in the protestant ethic, in a big and deep way. Probably why I started questioning so much as a teenager, young adult and to this day.
I am fiscally conservative and morally liberal. Or something like that.

There is a huge (and well-justified) resentment among bloggers about that effort, which basically seeks to funnel all the donor money into their own organization. They “built” their own sites, suck up all the available donor money and nothing ever goes to the independent efforts of those who have the virtue of actually having audiences.

Without getting into the weeds, a big grant was given to study how to get money to progressive bloggers. It was determined that developing a functional, modern advertising system was the best way. But the grant money mysteriously disappeared and we never heard anything more about it, so that’s when CommonSense Media just decided to say “screw it, we’ll do it ourselves.”

The actual details are much worse than that, but I don’t feel like getting into the pointless battle that would ensue.

Pfzer buys Wyeth….. this makes another company “TOO big to fail”…. Why is this being approved?

This is a little like being asked which angry hungry rat do you like more, isn’t it? Wyeth is in trouble so Pfizer is coming along to scarf them up. No, it isn’t that great of an idea but it is symptomatic. Wyeth made a killing off of Lipitor and now the patent on it has expired. So cheaper generics are coming or already here. Rather than invest for drugs that might be useful but only moderately profitable Big Pharma companies go after the next Lipitor. It is either a killing or nothing with them. The result in the industry has been that fewer drugs are coming to market and even among those many belong to the same families, i.e. essentially the same molecule with minor adjustments, like SSRIs, statins, ACE inhibitors, cephalosporins, etc.

for decades I have been an advocate for funding and research for the orphan drug research. As someone who has a type of cancer that is not a big name which draws big fund raising, runs and walks, Americans who suffer from diseases that effect only a fraction of the population get little or no research into their diseases.

I hear you. That’s the problem with donations, people who make them pick where they go, and often don’t recognize the hard work that others have put in (like you). But I think it’s essential that there are a range of new media, from home grown volunteer to for-profit and nonprofit, so that diversity continues to explode in a manner that counters what happened with corporate media over the last two decades. The challenge of business model and funding has always been there in traditional media; just look at the Christian Science Monitor and Mother Jones as two examples of media that never really became corporatized, always differed from the mainstream. Where would we be without outlets like them?

As for the realm of discussion: one challenge we face is finding the language they’ll hear without tuning out. I know I’m guilty of it; as soon as somebody mentions certain ‘wingers, I want to shut down and ignore what they have to say as useless and moronic. I cannot abide the crap their far-right groups generate — Young Americans for Freedom in particular, the new vanguard replacing College Republicans at the far-right — and yet what they are doing is so incredibly dangerous ignoring them is perilous.

One thing we should be using is religion; it’s damned hard for them to deny a Christian tenet like “money is the root of all evil.” I seem to recall Judas having a little trouble with a desire for silver.

1 Timoth 6:10 — For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Didn’t Jesus say, Render under Caesar what is Caesar’s?

Matthew 22:21 — Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.

Where did their Christian belief system get so damned corrupted by the meme that earthly wealth is godly??

Is it an overstatement to say that the US economy depends on TV like fish depend on water?

I don’t know what it was like before TV, plus I don’t trust books about the past since they are and were written by the most elite group for the most elite group (readers of books, that is) who literally know nothing about the other 99% of experience. (But I rely on the books and never watch TV except for golf and a little of what exercises writers at FDL).

The ‘public’ always implied the literate group (coined after the printing press), so it was always small, so the largest group, the untutored, deferred to their elite betters.

TV could inform the largest group more so than radio, so its effects have been staggering. Now TV’s unique power has been halved, its former market become diffuse, so our ‘politics’ are fluxier than ever, especially since everyone like has an opinion. Anyway, I feel better off today than I felt four years ago.

Could still get blocked, only just announced today, still has to go through review.

But there are eight or more pharma co’s with larger market cap than WYE, and at least two larger than PFE, makes complete block unlikely. More likely that some part may have to be spun off or that other competitors will take similar actions.

Great post, Jane. The optimal solutions for most all the green / social justice / political issues I’ve ever cared about are exiles in the sphere of deviance.

Motto for the s.o.d. region where those solutions reside: “We told you so.” On energy, deregulation, toxics, child development, land use, population…and so much more.

No wonder the spheres’ designers are terrified of nationalization. If our people ever total up the damages America’s home-grown oligarchs (and their hired hands) deliberately inflicted upon us all, the designers’ assets are toast.

I disagree. Capitalism underwrites hierarchy. It gives some people the power to tell other people what to do and most of us like being told what to do. It’s why sheriffs, judges et al participate in the foreclosure crisis by throwing people out of their homes even though it makes no sense. Say the house is under water, that the amount of the mortgage exceeds the present market value by like 50%. The bank can’t get more than the market value. If it gets a deficiency judgment, it will never collect it, yet we go along disrupting communities, watching local tax collections get decimated in the name of the system. Like it or not, it is madness.

As for me, I prefer utopia, a classless, moneyless society. If you think such a society impossible, ask yourself why you think. Your answer will reveal the cause of our madness.

I guess my answer is human nature, that’s why I don’t see that utopian vision as possible (in theory I too would love a classless and moneyless society). We have thousands and thousands of years of human nature, and in general the natural world, to predict how groups of people will act. Some will try to take more than they need. Some will be lazy and mooch off the work of others. Some will fight. Etc.

Thus, I think we do need some rules and regulations in order to have millions of people living together. Yes though, things get messy when we try to figure out where to draw the lines. Not sure of your background obviously, but I know from being on the Board of some small nonprofits (who are doing great work for society), that it’s incredibly difficult to get anything accomplished or decided if there isn’t a strong decision-maker somewhere in the process. We end up in paralysis of analysis. This is why I like have to hierarchy, to a limited degree.

So we develop systems and hierarchy that will hopefully serve the needs of society in the best way possible. In your example of foreclosures, I’d like to have regulations and government involvement to fix problems like that. A healthy public/private yin-yang is needed. I think the balance if WAY off at the moment, and that’s what most of us around here are trying to change, but I don’t think we need to scrap our Constitution entirely. If used properly, it can organize massive amounts of people in a very fair and just way.

According to my theory which I believe is original and so far as I know is accepted only by me, “human nature” is the collective image. It has been negative since the dawn of history. I extrapolate “self image psychology”, a widely accepted theory in which self images create individual behavior, to explain group behavior. Individuals reinvent themselves-addicts clean themselves up, the obese lose weight, etc. Not often. It is difficult, but possible. It is, I believe, possible for our species to reinvent itself if we change our perception of “human nature”. I grant that’s the neatest trick of the week. I’ve written a book-but I can’t get an agent, let alone a publisher. Today’s publishers are not looking for philosophy.

We scratch the surface of electric technology, but you can see how difficult it is to persuade people to break old patterns like representative democracy. Everyone on this blog (or almost everyone) is disgusted by the corruption and lack of caring by the powers that be. We had a narrow escape from George Bush. For a minute (OK it was more than a minute) I thought he might declare it in the national interest to postpone the election. Should people protest, we can count on soldiers and police to do as they are told and put the protest down. Much depends on the good will of those at the top of the hierarchy. That’s what broke the system. We trusted CEO’s not to take more than their share, not to abuse their position and they failed us. It is a mistake to rely on the kindness of strangers. We need alternatives. They are technologically possible. Unfortunately we lack the will to go there.

I CANNOT BELIVE WHAT IS GOING ON IN THIS COUNTRY WITH ALL THESE BAILOUTS. I DON’T EVER REMEMBER STUDYING THIS IN ANY OF MY BUSINESS CLASSES AT FLORIDA STATE. THESE PEOPLE ARE ALL THIEVES AND I HOPE ONE DAY TO BE IN A POSITION OF POWER TO PUT THEM ALL IN JAIL. WAIT DOESN’T OBAMA HAVE THAT POWER? YES HE DOES WE NEED TO MAKE HIM TAKE OUT MONEY BACK.